If you have Panther, you know to drag and drop folders into the sidebar. What I never liked was the real estate that the sidebar took up. Also, I have two folders that I have applied custom icons to, but they don't show up in the Finder windows. I noticed that there is a stopping point on the divider -- it stops right at the outside of the icon. Now the problem is that I don't know what each of the folders are. I have custom icons for everything else, but what if I want to put 10 folders in there?

Apple thinks of everything, eventually. If you move the divider to the edge of the icon, after you roll over the icon, the name shows up immediately (to the right), as seen in this brief movie. After you have sized the sidebar down, it remembers to stay with the icon size when you resize the window.

Hmm, did Rob make that movie? If he did, and he was not the author of the hint, he should have made more clear that this was HIS own movie, by using brackets as he normally does.

i.e. [rob adds: As seen in this movie(link)]

I know this is his site and he is entitled to do whatever he wishes with user submissions (even making a profit), but he should make more clear WHEN he is adding something that is HIS to another user's hint, for the sake of clarity and to avoid confusion.

This is indeed wonderful information! The only downside I can find to this is that my LaCie external HD icon no longer shows the "eject" button when it is an icon-only sidebar. I like the eject button here for convenience. Still, more screen real estate is a plus! Thanks for the tip!

I also missed having an eject button (for both external drives and mounted disk images), so I control-clicked the top of a Finder window, chose Customize Toolbar, and added an eject button (along with a whole bunch of other stuff, truth be told) to the top of the window.

Yeah, I just tested it and custom icons show properly for me as well. The original poster seems pretty high on "Apple thinking of everything, eventually" though... so perhaps they'll think of making custom icons work in the sidebar, for everyone, eventually. ;-)

I've been using this since the beginning and I love it. The one thing that I don't like is that I can't find a way to make all windows open this way. Individual windows will (usually) remember the setting, so that the next time I open the folder it will be that way, but disks, disk images and folders that are new or that I haven't opened since I installed panther open with the sidebar stretched to the size of the longest name on the list. When I have inserted a disk with a long name (think 'Unreal Tournament') this is particularly annoying. Anyone know how to fix this?

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I was offered a penny for my thoughts, so I gave my two cents... I got ripped off.

As far as i can tell, there is no way to make sure all windows size this way. I have found that I use only two or three windows, and if I make sure all my finder(desktop) windows are like this, I don't have a problem. I just size windows as they pop up and usually don't have the problem after. YMMV.

"...Also, I have two folders that I have applied custom icons to, but they don't show up in the Finder windows."

The Finder will eventually display the custom icon (perhaps after next login, or restart). If you can't wait, there is a new utility called "Nudge" that installs a contextual menu, so you just right-click on that folder and choose "Nudge" and it will tell the Finder to notice the custom icon.